"The Awakening" is a
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
short story by English writer
Arthur C. Clarke. There are two distinct versions of this short story.
[ Introduction to the story in The Best of Arthur C. Clarke]
The first was originally published in ''Zenith Sci-fi'' fanzine issue number 4 in February 1942. This version was reprinted in ''
The Best of Arthur C. Clarke''. It is this version which appears in the almost complete ''
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke''.
A revised version was published in the collection ''
Reach For Tomorrow
''Reach for Tomorrow'' is a 1956 collection of science fiction short stories by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. All the stories originally appeared in a number of different publications.
Contents
This collection includes:
*"Preface"
*"Rescue Pa ...
'' in 1956, individually copyrighted to 1951.
Plot summary
The protagonist is the Master who is suffering from heart failure and given less than a year to live. The Master opts to be frozen artificially for a hundred years in a remote location, after which he expects to be revived and get an artificial heart implanted in his body. However, the secret of his resting place has been lost over time, and the Master is only revived a long time later than expected (on the order of millions of years). He opens his eyes, eager to visualise how the future Man looked like, and is in for a terrible shock. As he looks at the insects surrounding him, he realises that Man had lost the Man-Insect war. Unable to take this in, his feeble heart gives in and he dies.
See also
*
Exile of the Eons for a reworking of this theme by Clarke.
References
External links
*
Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke
1942 short stories
1956 short stories
Works originally published in American magazines
Works originally published in science fiction magazines
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